A new year for Houston apartments: Building boom adds 25,000 units; will rents come down?

Just one complex going up Inner Loop: The Dinerstein apartments under construction on South Main near Kirby Drive.
Photo by Ralph Bivins

Houston's apartment building boom could slow the skyrocketing costs for rent in 2015. That's what apartment locators and realtors are saying, according to a report by KHOU Channel 11 News.

"I think we are at that tipping point, where we are almost at the point of being overbuilt," Rod Morrison of A-1 Apartment Locators asserted.

Citywide, more than 25,000 new apartment units will offer Houston renters more options, with 43 new complexes inside the loop alone. More than 4,200 new apartment units are under construction or planned in downtown Houston, thanks, to a 2012-approved tax break that abates most of an owner's annual property tax, according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

The average rental cost for a single bedroom apartment in the Loop is $1,400, while some luxury buildings in The Galleria area are charging as much as $3,000 a month for a 900-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment.

"We've always had a strong market," Amy Dupont of John Daugherty Realtors, told KHOU. "Even if we start mellowing out, we will still be above the national average."